The Unseen World and The Supernatural
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 177
Hebrews 11:1-2, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.”
Now, when you receive the inspiration that Jesus Christ died for your sickness, it's that very hour that you're healing has come. That's right. When you receive from heaven, that Jesus died for your sins and you have accepted it, you don't need any prayer for you then. You've already accepted it. It's settled (II Cor. 3:6).
Now, we can preach the Word, explain the Word. But you have to receive the Word. Oh, hallelujah. That's what sets it afire, brother. When you receive it, the revelation, something slips out of the unseen world yonder, comes rolling down through a mystical channel somewhere into your soul, that says, "Now I see it." Your eyes brighten; your lips that hung down, straighten up and smile. Every muscle in your body seems to rejoice. Something's going to happen. Something... You don't need to be in a prayer line then. You've got it then (Matt. 16:17-18; Matt. 11:25-26). [1]
Now, when was the Book of Revelations ever wrote? The first place, it was wrote before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). And, John, only by the Holy-Spirit-filled heart... Do you see?
Angelic beings associate together. Oh, I hope you get that, that just dropped right down, free. Look. And if you've got the Holy Spirit in you, then you're a candidate for association with the unseen world and the Supernatural. No wonder people can't believe in those things; they've never come in contact. They got nothing in here to believe with.
But when the Holy Spirit comes into the heart, quickly He becomes then a twofold being: one of the earth to die; and one of heaven to live (John 3:3). Amen. In his body he's still subject to death (II Cor. 4:16); but in his soul he's passed from death unto Life (John 5:24). In his body he has his earthly contact with his five senses; in his spirit he has a contact with God through the Holy Ghost. And the Angels of God visits them (Ps. 91:11), and speaks with them, and they are messengers sent from God to reveal, and to bring messages from God to the individual (Heb. 1:14). … You can't put the cupola on before the foundation's laid. See? So we got to remember that, put first things first. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; all these other things will be added unto you." (Matt. 6:33-34). [2]
Then what we got to be worried about? Jesus is here. His Spirit is here (Matt. 28:19-20). What happened just now? I went into another world. It's an unseen world. We become so conscious of looking at one another like this. But there's a unseen world; and you... It's greater than anything you can see (II Cor. 12:1-5). And here's Christ.
In this world, in this building here are evil spirits and war. And Christians anointed, and the Angels of God encamped about them (Ps. 34:7) trying to energize them with faith.
And here I am standing here just yielding myself, and the Holy Spirit's a moving, and this is what you call heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-7). But remember, Satan's always skeptic at the sons of God. You know, he always does that. Someone with a skeptic idea, when they do that, just he's trying to interfere. But Christians always overcome (Rom. 8:35-39). [3]
When God speaks anything, you must fasten your soul onto His Word and hold onto it. No, matter what the outside says, your faith looks to the unseen world. [4]
Now, we find our Lord then in His work, that He claimed to do nothing of Himself (John 5:19-20,30) but what He seen the Father doing. He gave all praise to God, thing that was unnatural, supernatural. Every armor that we have, brother, all of our armor is supernatural. Nothing natural that we have. We must believe it.
What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, meekness, gentleness, patience (Gal. 5:22). Now, you go down to the drugstore and buy me a quarter's worth of patience. I need it. Five dollars worth of love, I could stand a lot of that. See? See, it's the unseen something. That's our whole armor. We stand in the unseen world looking at the unseen things. Yet, to us, we see them, because our faith detects them and says it's there. [5]
And the whole Christian armor now is unseen (Eph. 6:13-20). The Christian looks at what he doesn't see natural (II Cor. 4:18).
Now, look. That's the only way you can be a Christian. You got to believe God, who you can't see (Heb. 11:6; I Peter 1:8-9). See, now look. Watch here. The whole Christian armor is love, joy, faith, long-suffering, patience, meekness, gentleness: Holy Spirit. See? All those things are unseen; they're unseen. But the things that's unseen is the ones that has the reality: the unseen things. [6]
You can't make yourself believe. It's a quality that's in you (Eph. 2:8). Faith is the substance, not just a make, imaginary (Hebr. 11:1). It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that you believe and you don't see.
Once again: And all the whole Christian armor, now remember, is by faith, all supernatural. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, patience; that's all unseen things; that's the whole Christian armor. The Christian always looks at things that he does not see because he's looking at a promise (Rom. 4:13-22). [7]
The believer's promise is Life, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, patience, fruits of the Spirit, Divine healing, a dozen things I got wrote down here that is your possession. It belongs to you, but you cannot have it until you fight for it (I Tim. 6:12). It's yours. Everything that's seen, every temporal thing that's seen belongs to me. God gave it to me, because through Christ He gave it to me. And things unseen belongs to me. Amen. I like that. What you can see, like Divine healing, and so forth, like that, that's good, we appreciate that; but the unseen...
Now, science can probe around here and say, "Well, let's see; let me take this man. You said he was healed; let me take him down and examine him. Let me see what happened. And you say you had a tumor once here, sir?"
"Yes, right there."
"Well, let me give a scientific research and see if it just didn't sink in and didn't go away. You say you were once blind and now you see. How do I know? Let me scientifically look and see it."
Now, they could probe around on that, but yet I'm heir to that too, everything physical (I Cor. 3:21-23). And then I'm also heir to things that can't be seen, where science can't probe. Amen. Amen. Unseen things (Amen.), I'm heir to that. Yes, sir. The things that can be seen, I'm heir to that. This actual earth, I'm an heir; you're an heir. Every believer is an heir; he's an heir to it. All right, then the unseen... Possessor of what? Heaven and earth. Amen. All things. You believe that?
You say, "Brother Branham, what about out there where you can't see? How do you know?" It's still mine. Amen. Heaven belongs to me. That's right. It's mine; God said so. And that's right. "Well, you've never seen, how do you know it's there?" I know it's there anyhow; God said so. "How do you know you're an heir to it, when you never seen it?" I believe His Word. Amen. See? I'm a heir; you're a heir with me; we're all heirs together through Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:17). [8]
In the garden of Eden, the devil chose the man's head by intellectual. God chose his heart by faith. And if you walk by faith, you have to believe things that you cannot see or even reason with your mind. We cast down reasons (II Cor. 10:3-6). When God says anything, we don't look at it no more intellectually; we let it soak right down into our heart and call anything contrary to it, as though it wasn't (Rom. 4:16-17). We look at what God said, Who gave the promise.
That's where the world's so tangled today. It's at too much intellectual preaching. Instead of Spirit filled churches worshipping in the Spirit, they're listening to intellectual messages. And you can't reason this out. There's no way at all to do it. [9]
The seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:7,29) doesn't look to any of the natural things; they look to what the Lord said. That's the promise. What if Abraham would've looked to the natural, at a woman a hundred years old, ninety she was, and he was a hundred, and had lived with her since she was a little girl and he was a little boy, and no seed? He didn't look at those things. He said he counted those things as if they were not, for he only looked to what God said. "I'll bless you, Abraham, and I'll give you a seed by Sarah." (Gen. 17:15-22). And he believed it (Rom. 4:1-3). You don't look to the opposition; we look at what God said. God said it; that settles it. [10]
Yet Abraham had a right to the promise, and the promise was his, yet he had to fight to possess it. Amen. There you are. The believer today, yet we're heir to all things, yet we're heir to every spiritual blessing, every physical blessing, every blessing the Bible promises, yet you have to fight every inch of it. That's the way God, He's got it set up. It's always been that way. You have to fight to possess what you know is your own. You have to fight to possess it. And that's what we have to do now. [8]
Now, how do you get saved? Let's take it in a childlike form where every believer, no matter what church you belong to. And your pastor, if he's a right man, he will tell you that you can only be saved through faith, not through works, through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). Now, you believe that He saved you.
Now, first thing, that comes from the heart. You believe it. Then you walk up and confess it (Rom. 10:10-13). Say, "I accept Jesus as my personal Saviour. I believe He saved me." There's not a physical thing in the world that you could prove that you're saved. Your eyes are the same color, got the same shirt on you had on. Go outside and the old gang says, "They ain't nothing to that." But you believe there's something to it, don't you.
Now, what if you say, "Well I'm going to see how it works out." It'll never work out until you keep your testimony going (II Cor. 4:13).
You believe you're saved. You act like you're saved. You say you're saved. And you associate with those that are saved, and it works salvation. Is that right? And the same thing will take place by Divine healing. You believe you're healed (I Peter 2:24). You act like He healed you. You say you're healed. And He's a High Priest of your confession to make good anything that you confess that He's done before the Father (Heb. 4:14-16). There it is. [11]
Some time ago I was in Canada having a meeting. And I walked down the street, and there was a man selling televisions. And they was having a program on from over in the States, and there was a cowboy there a strumming on a guitar. And this man said to me, "I'd like to sell you this set, fellow."
I said, "I'm just a tourist." "Oh," he said, "I see." And he said, "You just passing through?" I said, "No, I'm here in a service." "Oh," he said, "You wouldn't happen to be around here with this Branham outfit?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am." And he said, "What you think about that fellow?"
Well, there was nothing I could say at that time; I said, "Oh, I think the services are fine." I said, "Was you there last night?" He said, "Yes, I was."
And I said, "What do you think about that man getting up off of that cot, that soldier, that It called his name and told him who he was, and how he'd been in affliction for years."
"Oh," he said, "I don't think nothing about it, because I'd have to see it proved. That hypnotism doesn't go with me."
And you know, my old southern mammy had an expression, "Give the cow enough rope, it hangs itself." And I said, "Why, do you be..."
He said, "Anything that cannot be scientifically proven, then I think there's nothing to it."
But I said, "I don't like to be different, but I have to be now. The things that can be scientifically proven is not real. It's only the things that's not scientifically proven is real."
"Oh," he said, "That's ridiculous."
And I said, "All right, I want to ask you something. Could you tell me what love is? Could you scientifically show me what love is? Go down to the drugstore and buy me a quarters worth of love; I need some more." See? You can't see it. It's the unseen. Show me what life is; I need just a little more life; could you go buy me a quarters worth? Show me what life is, what love is, what personality is, what the Holy Spirit is, what God is. It's the unseen things that's real, lasting. These things are temporal and perishable. Yet we put so much emphasis and so much concern about the natural things, and so little about the spiritual thing.
And I said, "For instance, coming through this room right now is television pictures." And I said, "You have to show me the picture."
"Oh," he said, "of course, it hits the crystal, and then the tubes and so forth, and it shows the picture here."
But I said, "That man's in the United States." And I said, "You're picking him up over here, coming through the air that you can't see."
He said, "But we can prove it, because here's the picture showing that it's over there. And there's a sending station to prove that it's here."
I said, "Yes, and we can prove it too. For in glory we've got a risen Saviour Who sends it forth, and the Holy Ghost reveals it and makes it positive. Therefore we got a sending station and a receiving station." That's correct. God in heaven Who knows all things, can so put a gift in His church that He can magnify it and reflect Himself through it, and say things which is absolutely impossible by scientists to prove. See, we don't walk by things we do see; we walk by things we do not see. [12]
And so is God here and the Angels. And someday it'll be just as much reality as television or anything else is, because the Spirit will bring us into that immortal Life. Then we'll understand. [13]
And in the great unseen world that now is around us, stirring our emotions to repentance, and to bring evil before our eyes, that we have done wrong, with penitent hearts we surrender our evil ways, Lord, and ask for Divine mercy. And may the Holy Spirit, Who has shown us His mercy, give it to each of us as we humbly beg and ask God to fulfill His Word and to mold our lives and our character to fit His Word. [14]
References:
[1] “God’s Provided Way of Healing” (54-0719A), par. E-29
[2] “Revelation, Book of Symbols” (56-0617), par. 54-55
[3] “Faith” (56-0815), par. E-94
[4] “Life Is The Healer” (57-0611), par. E-44
[5] “It Wasn’t So From The Beginning” (62-0630B), par. E-25
[6] “Sir, We Would See Jesus” (62-0724), par. E-45
[7] “Calling Jesus On The Scene” (64-0319), par. E-5
[8] “Possessing All Things” (62-0506), par. 83-87, 59
[9] “El Shaddai” (59-0416), par. E-19
[10] “Possessing The Enemy’s Gates” (59-1108), par. 42
[11] “Manifestation of the Spirit” (51-0717), par. E-21
[12] “Looking At The Unseen” (59-0410), par. E-16 – E-18
[13] “Harvest Time” (64-1212), par. 78
[14] “God Keeps His Word” (57-0120E), par. E-83